Category Archives: China

China began service Wednesday morning on the world’s longest high-speed rail line…

…covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that from New York to Key West, Fla., or from London across Europe to Belgrade, Serbia.

Trains traveling 300 kilometers, or 186 miles, an hour, began regular service between Beijing and Guangzhou, the main metropolis in southeastern China. Older trains still in service on a parallel rail line take 21 hours; Amtrak trains from New York to Miami, a shorter distance, still take nearly 30 hours.

Completion of the Beijing-Guangzhou route — roughly 1,200 miles — is the latest sign that China has resumed rapid construction on one of the world’s largest and most ambitious infrastructure projects, a network of four north-south routes and four east-west routes that span the country.

Significant spending on the project has helped jump-start the Chinese economy twice: in 2009, during the global financial crisis, and again this autumn, after a brief but sharp economic slowdown over the summer.

Due to Republicans, the United States has yet to embrace the future of transportation…

…while high-speed trains have been zooming commuters across the continents of Europe and Asia for decades.

President Obama, in his 2011 State of the Union speech, called for a high-speed rail system over the next 25 years. However, Mr. Obama’s proposal to spend $53 billion on high-speed rail over the next six years hit a roadblock when Congressional Republicans eliminated money for that plan for the year.

The year before, newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin turned down federal money their Democratic predecessors had won for new rail routes, lest their states have to cover most of the costs for trains that would draw few riders.

The cuts will not halt the rail program since unspent money remains that can be used on new projects. But they leave the future of high-speed rail in the United States unclear. So far roughly $10 billion has been approved for high-speed rail, but it has been spread to dozens of projects around the country.

China builds its future while American Republicans hold back United States abilities.

An 8 minute video about how we arrived at this moment of poorly funded public services and widening economic inequality. Things go downhill in a happy and prosperous land after some folks decide they don’t want to pay taxes anymore. They tell the people that there is no alternative, but the people aren’t so sure after their society decays and the markets crash.

The Beijing CCTV tower, iconic since its conception in 2002, is officially completed.

CCTV_Iwan Baan

The project 10 years in the making saw its official construction completion marked with a ceremony in Beijing on May 16th, 2012.

The China Central Television Headquarters is a landmark in Beijing, transforming the skyline with its unique form and altering the way skyscrapers are perceived. The CCTV tower’s designers, OMA (Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren) began the daring project 10 years ago and, since then, the tower has been critically acclaimed for the innovative design and engineering challenges overcome during construction.

CITIES & THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Part 14, cities: Zhengzhou & Various

Zhengzhou, China — With a population of 8 million, Zhengzhou is the largest city in North-Central China and serves as the political, economic, technological, and educational center of the province, as well as a major transportation hub for Central China. The city’s industrial growth has resulted in a large increase in the population, coming predominantly from industrial workers from the north, transforming the city into one of the largest economic centers in China. The city’s staple industry is textiles; others include tractors, locomotives, cigarettes, fertilizer, processed meats, agricultural machinery, and electrical equipment. High-tech companies formed in recent years within in new material, electronics and biotechnology arenas, especially in the high-tech industrial park in the northwest of the city.

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Various Cities, China — With plans to create additional modern and exemplary cities throughout the nation, China has many options. Following are some poised for stunning growth.

CITIES & THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Part 14, two cities: Xiamen & Xi’an

Xiamen, China — With a population of 3 million, Xiamen is a coastal city in southeastern China and became one of China’s earliest Special Economic Zones in the 1980s. It has been ranked as China’s second “most suitable city for living.” Xiamen’s primary economic activities include fishing, shipbuilding, food processing, tanning, textiles, machine tool manufacturing, chemical industries, telecommunications, and financial services. By Chinese standards, Xiamen has highly developed banking services. The city benefits particularly from investment capital from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Over the last twenty years, Xiamen’s economic growth rate has ranged between 11% to 20% annually.

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Xi’an, China — With a populate of nearly 10 million, Xi’an is located in central China and one of China’s oldest cities, with more than 3,100 years of history. It is home to the famed “Terra-cotta Army” found under the Great Pyramid of China. Since the 1990s, as part of the economic revival of interior China, the city of Xi’an has re-emerged as an important cultural, industrial and educational center, with facilities for research and development, national security, and China’s growing space exploration program. Xi’an, as a second-tier city after those such as Beijing and Shanghai, has attracted growth in the Business Process Outsourcing field. The local government is using tax and other incentives to encourage companies and professionals to relocate there.

CITIES & THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Tianjin, China — With a population of approaching 14 million, Tianjin is a metropolis in North China along the coast of the Bohai Gulf and maintains an annual economic growth rate of about 15%. Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone is the largest free trade zone in northern China, and 285 Fortune Global 500 companies have established branch offices and investments in Tianjin, as it is a base of China’s advanced industry, financial reform, and innovation. The manufacturing sector is the largest (54.8%) and fastest-growing (18.2%) sector of Tianjin’s economy. Major industries include petrochemical industries, textiles, car manufacturing, mechanical industries, and metalworking. EADS Airbus has already opened an assembly plant for its A320 series airliners, operational since 2009. Tianjin Municipality also has deposits of about 1 billion tons of petroleum, with Dagang District containing important oilfields. Geothermal energy is another resource of Tianjin. Deposits of manganese and boron under Tianjin were the first to be found in China.

CITIES & THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Shenzhen, China — With a population of nearly 15 million, Shenzhen is a major city on the southern coast of China, situated immediately north of Hong Kong. Due to China’s economic liberalization, the area became China’s first—and arguably one of the most successful—Special Economic Zones. Shenzhen’s novel and modern cityscape is the result of the vibrant economy made possible by liberal economic policies and rapid foreign investment since the institution of the Special Economic Zone in the early 1980’s. Shenzhen is now one of the fastest growing cities in the world and is southern China’s major financial center — home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as well as the headquarters of numerous high-tech companies. Shenzhen is also the third busiest container port in China. It’s thought that Shenzhen has been the fastest growing city in China for the past 30 years, and it’s GDP per capita makes it one of China’s wealthiest.

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